New: Sigmanero.org -- sports betting with Monero multi-sig wallets

mj3473, 22 days ago

Great stuff!

Sigmanero will have 2 of the 3 necessary keys to sign transfers for extra security and to guarantee that it will always be a party to the transfers.

Doesn’t holding two keys in 3/4 multisig instead of one in 2/3 increases complexity? Why wouldn’t you let users settle the outcome between themselves and make Sigmanero a necessary party in the every transaction?

**The small innovation of sigmanero.org is that multi-sig wallets are auto-generated in the browser of each user, which hopefully significantly reduces the hassle of using multi-sigs. No need for command line interface (CLIs). **

Would you consider sharing this work? I imagine that can help other developers less familiars with the lover-level parts of the stack to develop against Monero.

Best of luck!

sigmanero_org, 21 days ago

Thank you!

– “Doesn’t holding two keys in 3/4 multisig instead of one in 2/3 increases complexity?” Yes, however since we launched we changed the scheme from 3/4 to 2/3 multisig. This means that users can indeed have full control of funds and settle the bet in any way they agree. In Sigmanero you can’t contact the opposite counterpart, however, we you can always create a “private bet” that can only be accepted with whomever you wish. If Sigmanero disappears and leaves funds in multisig wallets, it is also possible for users to coordinate to get the funds back since both users will know the main address of the multisig, so they could in theory ask around, “who also has this main address?” and agree between them where to transfer the funds. Hope this makes sense and its not too much detail.

– “Would you consider sharing this work?” yes, especially the front end code which relies on the outstanding monerots library. There isn’t much more to add to it besides getting coordination sequence steps right. On the back end the code is unsurprising to be honest. Again just a matter of handling the steps of the multisig generation.

blake, 2 months ago

Hey, this is a great idea.

I’ve been brainstorming how to create a political betting site using Monero - would Sigmanero ecosystem be easily adaptable to politcal events (eg/ elections) as well as sporting bets?

For me the main point of influence is the ‘oracle’ - who decides that the event is over and what the result is. If the lakers win 20-5 then it’s easy but if there’s extra time or the game is abandoned then the oracle becomes arbiter. Likewise in an election if the result is unclear or disputed then it is hard to definitively say who won within a given time frame.

At no point in time will Sigmanero have controls of funds

If Sigmanero is the oracle in this scenario - the could falsely declare that the Celtics won and could thereby designate funds (along with the losing bet-signer who wouldn’t mind winning some xmr). Therefore there is still a corruptible element.

Whilst I agree that for small amounts there isn’t a temptation to cheat - that argument doesn’t scale. Many betting facilities in crypto gain traction due to their ease of use - and in XMR it could get big too as it’s private. Then we can envision a superbowl-tier event where there are big bets going down and the temptation and facility to rugpull is there. I’m not doubting you / Sigmanero’s character just the game theory. As I say I’m keen to see your project work.

Sidenote: Does Sigmanero take donations? Or is it voluntarily hosted? The funding question helps users understand the motives behind the project. I would donate but be suspicious of a ‘free’ betting website.

sigmanero_org, 2 months ago

Hello!

“would Sigmanero ecosystem be easily adaptable to politcal events (eg/ elections) as well as sporting bets?” – Yes we expect to add further options in the future such as election outcomes or other relevant events. Perhaps also making public the odds at which users are agreeing bets and therefore act as reference for prediction markets.

The trusted Oracle problem is always present. However Sigmanero should be 100% neutral regarding the outcomes since it will only have earn a commission after the result is known. Therefore there is no monetary incentive to decree false outcomes. If A or B wins should not matter for Sigmanero, so why ruin the reputation and future fee income just to benefit one party?

The problem that remains is indeed if Sigmanero decides to become a party in bets, including controlling 3/4 of the signing keys instead of just two. In this case if Sigmanero decides to scam users, it would not even need to change the outcome of bets in its favour, but rather just transfer funds out of multisigs. Or perhaps as you hint, a gray scenario would be if Sigmanero doe not simply run away with funds from its multisigs, but rather maintains a facade of trustworthy intermediary while decreeing an outcome in favour of the bets it placed.

One mitigation to the scenario above would be to announce from the start that for the relevant event (for example an election) it will decree the outcome as per a known non-related third party or public source. This way Sigmanero could not deviate from the declaring an outcome in line with the third-party without suspicion.

There might be a cleaver way to increase the level of assurance that users are placing bets with normal users instead of Sigmanero. Every time a new multisig is generated, both A and B will be able to see the main address of the new multisig wallet.This means that both A and B could in theory signal to each other that they are not Sigmanero. This could work in some third party forum where users could disclose this address to other users, and other users would know from reputation tracking or other sources that that user is not Sigmanero. A more simple example would be if two friends, Paul and John place a bet against each other in Sigmanero. They would be able to see that they what they share the same main multisig address, and therefore that Sigmanero cannot move funds without one of their keys. For very large bets users might want to get such a credible signal before funding their side of the bet into the multisig. However we only see this becoming a topic for larger events or bets as you mention, therefore we have not spent too much time trying to come up with solutions for these cases. We are open for suggestions though!

“Sidenote: Does Sigmanero take donations?” – We are not taking donations at the moment. Sigmanero will charge a 1% commission on bets which we hope will be sufficient to keep the website running and provide the natural incentive for Sigmanero to actually work as intended.

Final note: We have received very good feedback so far including from other channels. The website is under maintenance to implement some of the suggestions and hopefully will be live again on Friday 12th April. One in particular, we have decided to drop the requirement for users to have to place a bounty with Sigmanero to initiate bets. This means that we will have to rely more on good behaviour from users. That is, if A agrees to make a bet with another user B, there is no monetary penalty for A not funding its side of the bet. If we see that a particular user is disruptive in this manner we will suspend the user from making new bets for a period of time. That is, if A sends the funds but B does not, we will refund back A and suspend B for a period of time. This means that there will be zero elements of custody of funds by Sigmanero and that the process whole will be much more simple for users.

Thanks!